Posts Tagged ‘large format photography’

More clearing of the archives. This is US experimental duo Buke and Gase playing in the Engineering Library of the National Concert Hall. This is from about two years ago I think. Cool space. They should use it more often.

This photograph was taken during the 2014 run of gigs by The Gloaming at the NCH in Dublin. It was the second time I had photographed them using the long exposure technique (the first time was in Vicar Street a year or two previously). They always put on a mesmerising show, and each one of them makes a unique contribution, but for me the real star is fiddler Martin Hayes. Which is why I was puzzled when, as we were leaving the NCH that night, my wife said: “Martin Hayes has no soul”. I initially took this as a criticism, meaning that his playing was lacking in some sort of emotional core. But then I realised she meant that the only way he could have achieved such instrumental virtuosity, such dazzling and seemingly effortless brilliance, was by trading his soul. Like Robert Johnson and many others before him, he must have set out some damp night and headed for a God-forsaken crossroads, probably somewhere in the middle of Clare, where he met the devil and did the deed. On the outside he’s a warm witty human being, blessed with a rare musical gift. On the inside he’s a cold dead husk of a man. It’s the only plausible explanation.

This is a photograph taken during the exhibition Amid The Deepening Shades which took place at the Deer Park hotel in Howth back in November 2014 and was curated by the artists Ruth Clinton and Niamh Moriarty. The Deer Park is no longer in use as a hotel and occupies a spectacular location in the grounds out the back of Howth Castle. The photograph was taken during a music performance by the drone/noise group mvestle which happened inside the drained hotel swimming pool one Sunday afternoon. I’m sure I was not the only person to feel echoes of Kubrick’s The Shining from the whole event. As if the location of the abandoned hotel was not enough, when I went for a stroll around some of the empty corridors, I came across a child’s bicycle lying on the floor outside the door of one of hotel rooms. They assure me they didn’t put it there on purpose but I don’t think I believe them.

This is Lee Ranaldo playing a recent solo acoustic gig in Dublin. Sonic Youth are on hiatus at the moment and consequently there doesn’t seem to be much hope of any new records any time soon. The upside of this though is that all of the members are not only pursuing interesting solo projects but also touring them in venues that are much smaller and more intimate than the ones they would be playing in if the whole band were in tow. Lee Ranaldo’s show was in the Bello Bar, which fits maybe 100 people – a far cry from the last time I saw Sonic Youth, which was at an ATP event in the UK a few years back, with an audience of a couple of thousand. (more…)

Exhibition 2012

What Is This?

A blog that (mostly) contains long exposure photographs taken by Hugh McCabe at gigs. I open the shutter at the start of the song and then close it at the end. There are occasionally other sorts of photographs too and also pieces of writing about photography, art, philosophy and visual culture.